So here I am, in Room 443 of the Captain Cook Hotel, in downtown Anchorage. I have a view from our queen-sized bed of a parking lot, a heavily trafficked roadway a tall building with mirror-like windows and a smaller building next to it that looks like it was built with Legos – some architects never grow up. If I go to the window, I can see the distant Cook Inlet. The mid-morning sky is blue with a faint cloud haze.

Here, inside, I have access to all the amenities – TV, Bible, lights, chair, thermostat, towels, and toiletries. And I have on the bed beside me, the Bones for Life I, II, and III manuals; Ruthie Alon’s Joyful Spontaneity; and the Bones for Life

handouts that I’m supposed to read tonight.

Prior to getting this material, I fretted because I knew that teaching this curriculum was dependent upon my being able to understand the lessons in the manuals. The focus of the classes was on the various moves, and there were far too many of them for me to remember. I was also afraid that the directives would be incomprehensible. I needn’t have worried.

I just finished reading the first manual. The various poses came back to mind and how to do them, thank dog. And in reading them, I began envisioning how I might teach returning riders. The focus in doing the Bones for Life moves is on aligning the spine so that one can get the blood circulation in the bones going again. Blood nourishes bone, and in nourishing bone, strengthens them. The Feldenkrais aspect of the moves also creates new neural pathways. It is all beginning to make sense to me.

If I had the time and the money – I’d become a Feldenkrais practitioner. I have the time but not the money. I’m 50 percent there. I think that money should fall out of the sky for those wanting to do such things because this would make the world a better place. This never seems to happen, so I am going to have to put this idea on the back burner.

Pete is our household wage earner and he holds the purse strings. He’s never, ever refused a financial request of mine. However, if I were also a wage earner, I would not have to make requests. For instance, I could fling my money out this hotel window and watch the denizens below fight for it like angered pit bulls. It would be no holds barred, for this is what the prospect of getting money does to people.

So I am riding on Pete’s shirt-tails, today this being most evident. He’s at a union meeting and I’m in his hotel room, wondering if I really will teach a Bones for Life class. I am not ungrateful at all; in fact I’m glad to be able to have the time to study. Everyone should be so lucky. Shirt tails, that’s what this is all about.